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Thursday, May 10, 2012

Feed an actor for a day or pay a teacher for a year

Tonight George
Clooney is sponsoring a $40,000 a plate dinner as a fundraiser for
President Barack Obama. President Obama's people say that the push
for fund raising is vital this year because they are up against big
money contributions pouring in for the Republican party.

But just think
about it. Where is that $40,000 going? And what could we do with that
$40,000?

Truly, having
dinner with any US President is pretty awesome and having dinner at
George Clooney's house, hosted by George Clooney, and catered by
Wolfgang Puck is pretty much a dream scenario. Even still, the amount
of money that goes into campaigns is really disgusting.

In Idaho, I am
running for the state senate in district 7 and we were required to
submit our pre-primary campaign finance reports this week. You can
check out the website of the elections office and read the PDFs of
everyone's reports. I faxed in the form yesterday and reported all
three donations that I have accepted in the total of $300. These
donations have gone to covering the expenses incurred in just filing
to be on the ballot, the purchase of some business card paper so I
could print off business cards at home, and some gas money to get to
events and talk with potential voters. As of the filing date I had
spent a little over half that money.

It is interesting
reading to see how much money is spent on our small, local,
elections. Several candidates had reported receiving campaign
contributions between 20,000 and 30,000 dollars. They aren't doing anything wrong - that is just how the system works.

There have been
attempts to reign in this spending with campaign finance reform but
what has resulted from those efforts is an even more ridiculous
campaign season with super PACS popping up being able to support
candidates without being directly associated with the candidate.

It has to start
with each one of us. We can't depend on our politicians to reign in
government spending. They seem to be like sharks; they get one little
taste of blood - or in this case free money - and they circle around
wanting more. Over the past week I have read some of the most
ridiculous excuses for "having" to accept this money.

We complain about
the politicians spending away money they don't have and digging our
kids into a hole that they won't be able to get out of. But we don't
want to hold ourselves and our own small communities accountable as
part of the culprits. We want to cut spending as long as it is THAT
spending that is going on somewhere else. Not the spending that is
going on right here in our very own back yards. What if the local
utility company gave $1000 to Habitat for Humanity to help build a
home instead of to a favored politician. Imagine the long-term good
that $1000 would do. Instead, there is a politician out there who is
now somehow indebted to the utility company. How does that help our
communities.

Last night on the
radio the host was asking people to call in and tell him where the
cuts in government spending should come from. Every suggestion was
met with the same reply "that's a drop in the bucket".
Maybe starting at the state level and holding candidates accountable
for their spending would be a good place to start. Even if it was
only a drop in the bucket.

In the age of
twitter where we are learning to communicate our ideas in 140
characters or less, why shouldn't we hold our local political races
to a similar standard? If you can't communicate your message in
$1400 or less are you really going to be able to cut the
governmental budget?